


Blowing the Blues Away

by Lilysmum



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 15:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilysmum/pseuds/Lilysmum
Summary: Set between Seasons 2 and 3.





	Blowing the Blues Away

She’s feeling kind of shitty, for no good reason that she can come up with, as she sits smoking on the front steps of her rental house on an ordinary overcast Tuesday afternoon. The gulls are screeching in the distance and the trees on the front lawn turn over their leaves and show her their undersides as the wind picks up. It’s going to rain any minute but she never minds the weather. 

Things are going well, she tells people, when they ask.

She’d mastered the intricacies of her crap-paying new job by the end of the first week and now she works every shift she can get.  She tells herself it’s because she enjoys it, but that’s not why. She’s looking for something more in it – she doesn’t even know what – that she suspected before she even started isn’t ever going to be there. There’s even a cute guy too, and true to form she’s already taken a step in that direction.  But he likes her more than she likes him and she knows from experience that nothing good will ever come of that.

Another positive, and it’s a big one, is that Jack is doing well. But it’s bittersweet; thinking it makes her feel selfish, but goddammit, it hurts that he is doing well _away from her_. Something about it just feels like defeat and yeah, she _is_ taking it personally.

She can run here, on the island, and she does, almost every day. There’s no car exhaust to breathe on the trails she chooses, no one she has to nod hello to or wave at.  And she eats; she actually even cooks in the bland but well-equipped kitchen. She can sleep, too, in the big master bedroom, or in either of the quiet smaller rooms at the back of the house, although she often prefers the sofa. Still, she figures it’s nice to have choices.  The only thing left is to quit smoking, and she will, she’s gearing up for it. She even told Reggie, so she knows that she means it.

She’d moved here to find peace and she supposes that she has. But is this what it feels like, this new normal that is quiet and healthy and oh so stress free? If it is then she’s finding it seriously over-rated. Because to her it just feels like something’s missing. Or like _she’s_ missing.

She doesn’t trust it.

Her cigarette is finished and she’s just stubbing it out in her tin can ashtray when she hears the crunch of tires on asphalt and looks up to see the familiar beat-up Plymouth rolling up her driveway.  

Holder. Wow.

A thin film of guilt forms in her stomach as she remembers the phone message he’d left for her that she hadn’t bothered to return. It’s as if she’d known he’d show up one day, sauntering on up like it’d been no time at all since they’d seen each other.  That’s the thing about Holder. She’s never met anybody who was so good at not getting mad at her.

Thunder rumbles in the distance as he rolls right up in front of her and stops, lining his passenger side window up almost exactly parallel to where she sits. And then he just sits there, grinning at her like some sketchy Casanova, daring her to make the first move. She manages to keep her game face on until the next clap of thunder startles both of them and puts an end to their game of chicken. They both cave at the same second and she cracks a smile as she reads his lips.

“S’up, Linden?”

She gets to her feet as he pulls the car forward and parks it a respectful distance behind hers. She watches him unfold himself from the driver’s side and amble towards her, an incongruous mix of athleticism and awkwardness that sets off a twinge of something new inside her now. She’s happy to see him, it’s true, but there’s more to it than that, some sort of vague longing, for the familiar, maybe, for something that wasn’t really very long ago but feels so far away from where she is now.  

As he nears her he holds up a plastic Safeway bag and dangles it towards her. She can see the outlines of what’s inside. One of her sweaters, a hairbrush, a small cosmetics bag.

“Got sick of waitin’ for you to come and pick up your overnight bag, Cinderella,” Holder explains as she rolls her eyes and reaches to take it from him.

That’s what his phone message was, she remembers, he had wanted to know when she was going to go by his place and pick up the stuff she had left there the night she and Jack stayed with him when the shit hit the fan on the Larson case. That and an invitation to get together for “a coffee or whatnot”.

They stand in front of her house and she’s not sure what to answer when he asks her how things are with her fine, fine, _fine_ self, and it doesn’t occur to her to invite him inside until the first drops of rain begin to pelt the ground, announced by another closer, louder roll of thunder.

“I’m good,” she tells him, once they’re inside her doorway and she’s got her bearings, and it’s the truth, she guesses.

“Yeah?” Holder counters, “You workin’ or what?”

“Yep. Ferry docks,” She nods, toeing off her shoes, an old pair of Keds that came with the place. They’re too big for her but they’re useful because they slip on and off easily. She keeps them by the door for when she goes out to smoke or take out the trash. “Lots of hours.” She says it emphatically, like it’s a good thing.

“So…safety vest?” Holder asks, squinting up at her as he bends to take off his own shoes. He’s eyeballing her like crazy under the guise of trying to picture her in the new job, “Clipboard? Steel toes?” He straightens up.

“You got it.” She’s laughing now, and can feel her face begin to colour unexpectedly.

“Nice,” he nods, grinning down at her, “real sexy, Linden.  But I think I prefer you in one of those…” His smile fades he nods towards the plastic bag that holds her old sweater and his voice trails off as he ducks his head and shrugs.

“So, what else?” he asks, following her into the hallway and going on before she can answer, “You…still single or what? Got yourself an island man yet?”

“Well not really,” she begins but he carries on before she can change the subject.

 “Which one Linden? Not really single or not really got a man?”

She stifles a laugh now, in lieu of a response, because of course he would ask her that. She knows how smoothly he can pretend a lack of guile inside his twenty questions approach to conversation, and she remembers the shameless, unnerving way he has of sliding right in close to the bone. It had worked so well for them, sometimes, she recalls, dealing with witnesses when they worked together and then there’s that twinge again, that little flicker somewhere in her chest that gives rise to a semi-sweet ache she feels all the way through her core.

He’s easily distracted though, thankfully, that hasn’t changed. She motions for him to follow her and he does, firing a few more ambiguous little questions at her that she manages to dodge because he’s so busy looking around, nodding his approval at the house’s completely soul-less 90’s décor.

In the kitchen it’s the first time she looks at him properly. She’d forgotten how tall he is, she’s not used to someone so tall standing beside her anymore, and he looks good, too, in dark jeans and a black zip-up. He’s lost that hungry look he had, before, when she first met him, lost the appearance of someone who never gets enough sleep, enough food, enough of anything.

She picks up the kettle, raises it a little in his direction and glances at him with raised eyebrows.

She means to offer him tea or coffee but something completely different comes out of her mouth. She can’t believe it but there it is…

“Or…there’s a bottle of wine in the fridge, if you feel like…”

Holder just stares at her for a second, as if he hasn’t heard her correctly. Or as if maybe the real Sarah Linden has been kidnapped by aliens.

“Hangin’ around?” he finishes her sentence, “I could do that,” he tells her soberly before a delighted grin fills his face and she feels the blood rising to her cheeks again. She turns away now, to hide it, giving her head an almost imperceptible little shake as she reaches to open the cupboard.   

“So, how’s it with you?” she asks him as she takes out the glasses. Enough is enough, she thinks, time to get his laser beam focus off of her. She’s not sure she’s comfortable with him despite how weirdly good this sort of, kind of, almost, feels. Suddenly she doesn’t trust herself, or have any idea of what she might say next. And she’s not sure if it was right to offer him the wine.

Finding peace, she decides, has affected her brain.

He talks about work, of course, with the type of enthusiasm teenagers save for their best buddies, motioning with his hands, shifting his weight from one white athletic-socked foot to the other as he describes his current case. It’s his first day off in seven, he tells her, but it’s okay, he doesn’t mind the schedule. She’s missed him, she decides, missed this, his eagerness, the way he is not content to sit and wait for his moment, and his barely-restrained physicality that somehow makes her aware for the first time in ages of her own.  

She fills their glasses and they move into the living room, settling themselves at either end of the sofa. It’s firm and serviceable and not particularly comfortable but she’s used to it - it’s what you get when you rent a furnished house.  Holder leans over towards her to clink the rim of his glass to hers.

The wine is obviously homemade, possibly a gift from the landlord or else just left behind in the fridge by the previous tenant and she hadn’t gotten around to either drinking it or throwing it out. On the first sip it’s good, even if it does have a bit of an edge. The second sip is better and by the third she can already feel it going to her head. And it’s not a bottle, it’s a jug, sitting solidly on the coffee table in front of them as they watch the rain on the windows.

 

They talk and don’t talk by turns; that is, Holder talks, mostly, and mostly about work. He’s a good detective - that much is obvious. Something in the way he speaks about the job, the victims and their families lets her think that maybe some of the things she tried to show him did rub off – in spite of the rough start they got as unwilling partners and amid Holder’s inexperience and the clusterfuck of her personal life they had connected and stuck together and got the job done. They’d been a good team and it’s obviously stood him well.

Things are okay with his sister, he says, her kids are getting big. He mentions Jack but gets it that she doesn’t want to go there. But yeah work’s good, he says, bouncing back to what is safe. She can’t help wincing when she hears who his new partner is.

“Hey, Reddick’s not too bad,” he says, off her look, “I mean, he ain’t you Linden, and it ain’t like how our thing was, you understand, but we do okay.”

Our thing. It rolls off his tongue like he says it all the time. Our thing. A thing.  

She sits down a little closer to him after she refills their glasses, and pivots sideways so that she can see him better, settling herself cross-legged. It’s almost dark and the rain has stopped but the storm has left its weight in the air.  It’s not over, there’s a heaviness she can feel on her skin.  It’s warm in the room and Holder feels it too. He sheds the hoodie, revealing a soft grey t-shirt and after a minute it’s so quiet and neither of them are saying anything and there’s nothing she can think to do except look at him. He’s a bit heavier across the shoulders than she remembers. His arms are lean and strong; scrappy, hard-won muscles under pale skin with sparse, fair hair.

“What about you?” she says finally, “I never asked you. Are you… seeing anybody?”

He has the look of someone who is. She hadn’t wanted to ask, for some reason, but the wine makes her do it.

“Kinda, I guess, yeah.” He says quietly, and pauses, then, “But I...I don’t know what it is.” He squirms in his seat a little, shrugs his shoulders, and exhales slowly, then turns to look her in the eyes, “I mean…she has no idea who I am, you know?”

“Yeah.” She does know.

“It’s…it’s difficult.”

She nods, sighs, “Everything’s difficult, Holder.”

“This ain’t.” He leans forward and sets his glass down.

“What?”

“This ain’t difficult, Linden.”

“No.”

Without meaning to she turns even further towards him and she can feel it pressing down everywhere on her now, the electricity of his presence, the vibe. It’s not the storm. It’s not the wine.

“I should get going,” he says, but he doesn’t move right away. Except to lay his hand on her thigh. Strong warm fingers grip her lightly through her jeans for a second and then disappear, leaving a sizzle in their wake.

He plants his feet and shifts his weight, as if he is going to stand up but it takes nothing for her now to lean back and lift her legs across his lap and then to put her hand on his shoulder, feeling his solidness through his shirt, pulling him down so that she can reach him.

 

Kissing Holder is like the wine. A little offbeat at first, but definitely good. Then it’s exponentially better. After that all she wants is more, more, and more. He lifts up and she gets her legs around him perfectly, as if she’s done it a thousand times before and he feels the way she wants him to, everything about him is hard, urgent, pure raw energy. He tells her the couch is fine but it’s not, he’s longer than it is and it’s got stupid wooden armrests, he can’t fit.

“Holder I’ve got three bedrooms,” she tells him between breaths as she slides her hands up inside his t-shirt to run her fingernails lightly across his back.  He groans a reply that she can’t make out as he stuffs his face down inside the thin girly sweater she has on, nipping gently at her shoulder, grazing her with his facial hair.

Its torture going up the stairs. She is all liquid from the waist down; her legs barely co-operate. Her sweater gets left behind and when she has to stop mid-way Holder presses up against her from behind and attacks her neck until she pries his hands loose from around her waist.

In the bedroom he’s as impatient as she is and he’s crazy strong; veins stand out in his forearms as he lifts her and holds her up to deal with their height differential. She grinds herself against him and he gives it back to her, bracing them with one arm on the wall behind her and leaning into her, letting her feel him which is all fine and good but very quickly not enough.  She squirms out of his grasp long enough to get rid of her bra and jeans. His eyes are black as night and he’s staring hard at her as he sheds his t-shirt and she peels off her underwear.

It’s dim in the room but he’s luminous, black ink etched against white skin on the smooth planes of his body as he steps towards her. The sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor is the sexiest thing she has ever heard. It’s like something out of a dream when they’re on the bed - nothing between them but their own skin and the knowledge that nothing is going to stop what’s happening now.  She rubs herself up against him, against the sharpness of his hipbone as if to mark him somehow, or leave her scent. He sucks in a quick breath when she first touches him; he feels like steel wrapped in warm silk. He growls in her ear that he can fuck like a madman and he does; so can she, and she comes in about two minutes,  shattering all around him and then holding on while he follows her, seconds later.

“Linden, you gotta give me another shot,” he pants, almost immediately afterwards, flopping over onto his side and pulling her with him, wrapping her in his arms and looping one long leg around both of hers. She can feel his chest heaving behind her as he tries to catch his breath and she laughs softly, bending forward to rub her cheek and then her lips against his forearm where it crosses her body above her breasts.

“Serious,” he says, a minute later, when he can talk again, “That was too quick. I’m not usually like that.”

“I was quicker,” she points out.

“You’re too hot for me, is all,” he tells her, squeezing her tightly and she feels him everywhere. “Had to prime the pump…”

He buries his face in her hair, breathes her in and lets out a giant sigh.

“Stand by for more action, Linden.”

She laughs softly. “Will do,” she tells him, lacing his long fingers through hers. 

 

They’ve gone three rounds and Holder’s body is soft and heavy and quiet now, so much so that she thinks he may fall asleep. She’s not a cuddler but she’s been humouring him. She squirms out of his arms now though and turns to face him, propping herself up on an elbow.

“Nice of you to bring my stuff back,” she tells him, “coming all the way out here on your only day off.”

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, Linden,” he says with a wink, “know what I’m sayin’?”

His eyes glint in the darkness of the bedroom and he moves to pull her in close again, “Nice of you to hit on me too,” he adds then, and she can feel him bracing himself, anticipating a response that doesn’t come because she’s too busy thinking about what he said earlier.

She props herself up again so she can see him properly. She’s not finished.

“Remember what you said when we were talking about Reddick?” she asks him.

“What’d I say?” he asks, puzzled.

“You said working with him wasn’t like “our thing”. Was it like that? Did we have a thing?” The flutter she feels in her chest doesn’t hurt, anymore.

Holder huffs out a laugh and pokes a long finger playfully into her side, tickling her.

“Guess I got that right, huh?” he asks, grinning, but she doesn’t bite, she just looks at him steadily.  

He studies her for a minute and she can tell he is thinking of something now, choosing his words carefully.

“Well yeah, Linden,” he begins, “I mean, being with you? That’s about the totally best place on the planet, I’d say,” he tells her. He runs his hand down her arm and she feels his fingers circle her wrist, tightening for a brief moment, “And don’t you go runnin’ away now, just ‘cause I said that, either,” he adds, “You asked.”

 

Its dawn when he leaves, just starting to get light as they share a cigarette on her steps. She walks him to his car through the wet grass. The air is clean and cool. There is nothing new, but that's not how it feels. They both have work in an hour.

“Nice crib,” Holder tells her, looking back at the house as he opens his door. He holds a travel mug of coffee she fixed for him. She’s so organized these days.

Linden turns and looks back too.

“It’s not my house, Holder,” she sighs, “I should have known.”

Holder turns to face her. His eyes pin her to the spot, for a second, steady, dark and intense. He nods slightly, he understands.

“You gettin’ all cryptic on me now?” He reaches out and pulls her into a loose one-armed hug. He presses his lips to the top of her head, then slides them down closer to her ear.

“Well I got something that belongs to you, Linden,” He tells her and then he takes her hand and presses it to his chest, “Right here. Feel it?”

She splays her fingers out against his warmth and yes, she can feel it. Steady. Solid.

“And that’s for reals, okay?” Holder adds, tilting his head down to look into her eyes.

She nods. Yes.

“So call me this time, alright?” he tells her, stepping away to climb into his car, “Don’t make me wait.”

“Okay,” she promises; it’s the most she is able to say. But she means it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by (and some of the lines were shamelessly stolen from!!) the old Max Webster song of the same name.


End file.
